


Champagne Petals

by Edmondia_Dantes



Category: Death Note
Genre: F/F, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edmondia_Dantes/pseuds/Edmondia_Dantes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a notebook fell from the sky, and Light Yagami was the girl to pick it up. Genderbend AR, yuri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

When Light Yagami is six years old, the chief suspect in a slave-trading ring shoots her father in the chest. The bullet misses his heart, her father survives the surgery, and the suspect gets away.

She watches her father wheeze in the hospital bed, watches her mother clutch his hand and mumble prayers, and tries her best to block out the sound of Sayu's sniffling sobs.

A tiny frown etches her lips and gets stuck there.

The bad guys aren't supposed to get away.

* * *

At age eight and a half, she stands her tallest and straightest, hands folded behind her back and chin lifted in childish arrogance.

"I want to be a police officer," she declares, and glares when the newly-minted chief of detectives laughs and pats her hair affectionately.

"That's a very big job for such a small girl," he says warmly, "grow up a bit first, won't you?"

She knows he thinks it's a passing fancy, knows that he and mother will chuckle over it later, knows that she is small and soft now, but she also knows that for all his intelligence, her father doesn't know her, not really, not beyond the accolades from teachers and other parents, not beyond all the ordinary excellencies of her life.

Light Yagami sets her jaw and vows to be extraordinary.

* * *

She asks for self-defense lessons at age ten, and they hand her a tennis racket instead. It's her mother now, she knows, worried about her health and safety, worried about her interest in the old college textbooks gathering dust in her father's closet, at the way she trails after cases and criminals and how obsessively she watches the evening news.

She swings the racket in her hand and narrows her eyes. The next day she crops her hair short with a pair of scissors filched from her mother's sewing supplies and leaves thick ropey spools of brown hair spilled over the bathroom floor, and doesn't clean it up afterward. It earns her a scolding, but later as she's chasing down balls and screeching across the court, she smiles at the feel of the wind on the back of her neck.

* * *

She quits tennis when high school rolls around, turning down endless club invitations with grace and polite coolness, all kind apology and a false smile that looks real. She turns down the boys and the occasional shy girl, still watching every move that she makes, discreet and lovely and perfect, and ducks gracefully away from her mother's worried frowns and her father's concerned stare.

She throws away every love letter but takes care to remember their names, and smiles at her sister's enthusiasm over every empty-headed pretty bit of fluff that can vaguely carry a tune. "Boys aren't everything," she chides Sayu, tapping the pencil to paper to drag her attention back to the math homework, "I'll think about them more when I'm at university."

Her parents think she's being responsible, and it eases their minds. They've been worried, she knows, but she plays the game well enough that she doesn't look like she's anti-social, just studious and reserved.

In the times that she's excused herself with promises of studying, Light locks herself in her room and spends her evenings staring blankly up at the ceiling.

Sometimes it feels like she can't breathe.

* * *

When she's sixteen, she lets a boy kiss her. The attention is nice, for a while, and the sensation is not unpleasant, but the boy is stifling in his sincerity, in his awe of her, and she turns him away three days later.

The next boy is attractive, she supposes, in the eyes of her classmates, and clever by a teenager's standards, and she sleeps with him once out of curiosity. The act is much more boring than she anticipated, and she feels disgusting by the time it's finally over.

The next one she picks is a girl, quiet and intelligent, and at least this time around things are less distasteful, less messy. It doesn't stop her from dumping the girl three days later, once she's figured out all she needs to know.

* * *

They don't understand why she has no interest in student council, in clubs, in anything at all, and sometimes it feels like she's beating her hands raw against a wall that no one else realizes is there.

No one's going to care what she does when her test scores are perfect, and since they already are there's no reason to try.

She's studying when she says she is, but it's never what the teachers assign, and if her future's supposed to be so bright, why is the world around her so dull and bleak?

* * *

When she's eighteen, a black notebook falls from the sky, and the world opens up before her.

She holds a pen lightly in her fingers, kills fourteen men, then carefully varnishes her nails, cheerfully explaining human standards of beauty to a curious shinigami, and what is and what isn't socially acceptable for a young woman of her age and social standing to be doing.

Ryuk laughs and it sounds like the world is tearing in two.

Light thinks she likes it.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of Kira's career.

Two minutes after writing down Lind L. Taylor's name, she's screaming invective into a pillow, and a minute after that, Light looks up at Ryuk and laughs softly, breathless and wild-eyed, flushed with exertion and practically vibrating from the force of the adrenaline rush. "That was really good," she says, and her smile is luminous, all razor edges and brightness enough to sear the skies to flame. "This is gonna be really fun."

It is.

* * *

 _Stalker_ , she thinks, glancing back over her shoulder, and the thought is terrifying in an instinctive way, because she won't risk losing any years off her lifespan but she doesn't _know_ his name and can't really see his face and her parents never gave her those self-defense lessons and book-knowledge only goes so far--

Pause. Breathe. _Think_. She's a Kira suspect and L is brazenly bold, and if he's watching then she's safe. That has to be it. That has to be.

She bites her lip hard as she walks home, a little stiff, a little unnatural, because everyone knows you're supposed to stay in lighted places, go where there are people, and this is why she has to change things, this is why she has to take justice in her own hands because otherwise more people will feel this way, and she's got a little sister who's going to be gorgeous when she grows up, cute and sweet and pretty, so unlike everything that she is, all soft edges to her own velvet-lined steel, and she has to protect her too, because that's what you do, you protect what's yours even if you don't know why it it is or what you're supposed to do with it, that's what her mother would do.

Her father might think he protects the family, because he's the provider, because that's what is expected of him, and she doesn't know why her mother insists on keeping it quiet that she is the one who would kill for them with her bare hands, who sat down with the two of them and quietly told them exactly where to strike if boys got too fresh, and even if she can't understand it, why she plays along with such a demeaning stereotype, she can at least understand what it means.

She doesn't quite notice when the stiff-legged march slides into a stalk, when her mouth curls down into a savage snarl, but she does cast a sharp glance up at her shinigami as he starts to laugh. She can't and shouldn't say anything out loud, so she tilts her chin up and mouths the words, resolute in the stillness of the evening.

She is going to kill this one, and she is going to make it _hurt_.

* * *

She borrows a too-small top from her little sister, lets her mother help her with her hair, and giggles just enough that they're giggling too, promises pictures of the so-cute and so-bright boy that she's chosen for her date, and stays perfectly still as her mother dusts her lashes with a hint of glitter, a holdover from her days of dating their father, and she and Sayu pester her with questions and squeal at the answers, and Light Yagami is wearing sweet perfume and a shorter skirt than usual and soft pale lipstick as she walks out the door to kill a dozen FBI agents.

A brief stop at a set of public lockers has her shrugged into an oversized hoodie with a radio in the pocket, and she makes sure to blow Ray Penber a kiss as he dies.

She leaves the train two stops later, tucks the evidence in her oversized purse, dumps the hoodie in an alley and greets Kyoshi with the softest of smiles. She spends an afternoon getting indulged in her favorite sweets and pretty jewelry with clever locks and hiding places, meant for a sweetheart's photo and destined for a scrap of the Death Note, and when he asks her to the hotel that she's been discreetly suggesting for the last hour, she smiles sweetly and says "Let me call and tell my mother I'll be out with friends tonight," and darts away into the crowd.

Both Sayu and her mother approve of the photos she's taken on her phone, but are appropriately mock-scandalized when she tells them about the hotel, and she rolls her eyes and tells Sayu that no, it doesn't matter how cute he is, she doesn't like boys who presume things, and no, she will _not_ be calling on him again.

She makes sure to cry into her pillow a little bit, just in case.

* * *

There's a pretty dark-haired liar right in front of her, and Light eyes the appealing curve of her thighs beneath the leather and spins her own lies even sweeter, because it's human instinct to trust girls more, whether because of solidarity or stupidity or both, and she doesn't think she could take this one down, not unarmed, not when she's still this young and so completely untrained.

She's never _needed_ strength, but need and want are very different things, and so she falls back on what she knows, soft and sincere appeals and keeping her eyes a little bit wider than usual, and so it's not that hard, really, because she's layering truth with lies and the woman is clearly in mourning, clearly not thinking straight, and she thinks that a man so easy to kill was no match for this one, but then again, love makes people stupid, so she might as well let her know, just because in another world...

The look on Naomi Misora's face is slow-dawning horror, and she knows she ought to be amused, but it stings, just a little, to watch her go.

* * *

Sixty-four cameras make for what is possibly the highest compliment she's ever received. It's also completely infuriating, but mostly she's just flattered.

Ryuk just doesn't understand these things, even when she's explained them. Maybe it's a human thing, or maybe it's just because Ryuk is the closest thing that there is in his species that's like a boy.

Light pauses. Considers. Speaks.

"...Ryuk. You pervert."


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the adversary.

"Hello," Light says to the scruffy stranger after the exam is done, making sure her skirt is falling smooth and soft to her knees, tilting her chin a fraction to the left to let the slanting afternoon light hit her face in a way that makes her look soft and vulnerable, even though the fluorescent lighting glaring down from above plays hell with her complexion. "I couldn't help but notice that you were looking my way a few times during the exam. Would it be rude of me to ask you why?"

"You're very pretty," the stranger says, voice a low contralto, "and therefore more pleasant to look at than anything else in the room... and you kept glancing back at me. Why?"

"You're very interesting to look at," Light says, and isn't lying, isn't preening, either, because she's used to flattery but this is different somehow. She casts a glance down at the worn jeans, the loose top, the hands with the nails bitten down low, then back up at the calm, expressionless face. Makes her judgment and takes a risk, because her instincts are screaming and if she's right, well. "And you don't adhere to normal social standards for a girl. Why?"

"Why should I?" the stranger asks, not at all surprised, not at all taken aback, and Light lets her lips curve into a soft smile, looks right into the blazing intensity of her dark dark eyes.

"So that I can properly invite you to tea," Light says, and the girl chuckles, deep and throaty, like a man.

"There is a decent cafe two blocks down the street," the girl says, "and they have very good parfaits."

Light blinks slowly, eying at her from the top of her ruffled hair to the soft curl of her bare toes. Unexpected. Which is... nice. "...parfaits?"

"According to all of the manga that I have read, it is what girls here eat when out with one another. I would assume that you prefer coffee, and was planning to eat yours in your stead."

Light blinks again. Considers. Thinks how much she doesn't like sweet foods, anyway. "...how's the coffee?"

"Quite good."

"Let's go, then."

"Yes, let's."

The girl stuffs her hands in her pockets, and she's never been inclined to touch strangers, so Light's not quite sure why she reaches out, but when she links elbows with her, it feels as natural as breathing. The other girl glances down, back up again, and smiles, an odd, sharp little thing that's a little feral, a little awkward, and she's not sure why, but it makes her take a step closer, a little amazed and a little wondering, because she's never done this before, never once tried to play sweetness instead of grace, never tried to be cute and ingratiating, but this isn't that either, this is just...

They're of a height, and a gait, and and out of the corner of her eye she catches a few familiar faces in the crowd, but there's nothing there that she needs to see, not really. Certainly not any more, with the opposition so close and so shameless, because even if she's just a decoy, she's already so much better than the ones that came before, just in the quirk of her smile, and those watching from behind the cameras already know her imaginary preference for slim, boyish girls. Every other kind of pornography she'd found made her feel sick, but the artistic kind, all folded silk covers and soft, pleased smiles, no artificially shaped or inflated bodies, no dyed hair and no makeup, she could stomach that, could appreciate the beauty in it, and if she'd discovered a preference for a one type over another, that was just a consequence of the girls she'd had before, and meant nothing.

Maybe not nothing, she thinks, glancing at her from beneath the veil of her lashes, pleased when she's immediately met with an open, returning stare. It's different and it's strange and it's clearly a threat, ridiculous and bold and startling, and she's a little surprised that she's feeling so much delight, but taking the first step forward is refreshing, and a little more time with a dangerous stranger is a necessity that just happens to be a thrill, that's all.

It would have been an educated guess, all conjecture, because to anyone on the outside a girl like her would never associate with a girl like this, except that's she's already three-quarters certain that's she's perfect, and though it bothers her a little that she's so transparent, ignoring this perfectly baited trap would be even more suspicious.

It's a little terrifying that she's being found out so quickly, but Kira wouldn't be so reckless, and that's exactly what she's counting on, because Light Yagami the teenage girl has never been impulsive, but then again, she's never met someone like this before. It's perfectly reasonable to think she'd be attracted to a girl that was hand-picked for her, that she'd inquire as to the attention in a situation where it wasn't warranted, that she'd respond to a lure so perfect.

Kira would avoid the obvious trap, or be too arrogant to recognize it, or too cautious to make a move like this, so this is the perfect way to throw off suspicion, and besides...

The girl lifts a sneakered foot and shoves the door to the outside open, hands still buried in her pockets, and Light giggles and presses just a little bit closer, because she's playing on instant attraction and because she likes it, the smooth grace of the motion and the girl's complete lack of self-consciousness in the face of all the staring.

Forget the rest. This new threat is unlike anything L's thrown at her so far, and she's utterly charmed by the new twist in this dance.

* * *

"Ryuuga Hideki," she says, blank-faced and incongruous behind a parfait so elaborate it's nearly spilling over the edges of the glass, and Light blinks, startled by the blatancy of the lie. It's brilliant, really, and she makes a mental note of it, to be a little more careful, to tuck those moments when her breath freezes away into something more incongruous, like surprise or confusion or indignation, and maybe skepticism's the way to go, since they've gone this far to track her, to narrow it down to just the kind of girl that might be strange enough to catch her eye.

She isn't pretty, not in any conventional way, but there's something beautiful about her strangeness, the casual confidence in her slouching step, and Light remembers watching the other girls in her class, the gossip and the drama and the ridiculousness of it all, the pointless chatter and the vicious backstabbing, but she also remembers the closeness, the friendships that stretched from childhood and all through high school, the tight little cliques that she never fit into and never wanted to, pairs and trios that she'd never once been able to understand, a prospect of a kind of intimacy that made her feel vaguely nauseous.

She stares across the table at the now-barefoot girl dangling a chocolate-drizzled wafer from between thumb and forefinger and wonders why she doesn't feel sick at all.

"You don't look much like a pop star," she says, watching the curl of her tongue and the curve of her lip, wondering why the disregard for hygiene and proper manners is making her smile. "And all appearances to the contrary, you're not a boy."

The girl's lips quirk in an odd little smile, and that might be why she doesn't mind, because everything about her is so _interesting_ , impossible to categorize and dismiss, impossible to ignore. "You don't look much like a source of illumination," she retorts, and spins the spoon in her fingertips with a peculiar sort of grace before sinking it into the pile of ice cream and syrup with evident delight.

Light chuckles faintly, stirs the silver spoon in her cup with a practiced hand. Real silver, the cafe far more expensive than the ones near her high school, and she'd be a little more worried about the cost if she weren't sure the bill would fall straight onto the shoulders of the enemy, and just because this heaps more suspicion on her shoulders doesn't mean that she minds the preferential treatment. "Yeah... apparently I was a pretty hard birth, so I've always kind of suspected that mom was stoned out of her mind when she named me."

"My father wanted a son very much," the girl says in reply, "he had his heart set on the name Ryuuga. A little thing like the child's sex wasn't going to stop him."

The coffee is imported, black and strong, and she watches her devour both parfaits in quick succession, suspicion and delight curling a soft tangled knot deep in her belly, and they talk of the world and politics and schoolwork and Kira. Light finds herself a little startled when the servers quietly brush in and leave dinner on the table, all her favorite dishes but not quite to the point that it's being obvious, and there's an odd flutter in her belly that might be dread or nausea or a quiet thrill at the flirtation. Ryuuga watches her with that odd little smile, drawls a lazy, "I guessed," and she laughs and tells her she's creepy and wonderful, and calls the waiters over to order the most expensive and elaborate dessert on the menu, and insists on paying in cash for it, no matter the size of the bill.

It is, as it turns out, a very big bill, and her student budget isn't what it once was thanks to that little TV, and the radio, and Light blinks over at Ryuuga, then waves the bill at her with an embarrassed smile. "I can't do anything right lately," she says, careful to project awkward clumsiness as she launches into the story of her last disastrous date, a boy she didn't even like and a desperate desire to just be _normal_ , of her suggestions for a love hotel and then her panic at the thought of following through, and is very careful to dance around the subject of why, averting her eyes and wrapping her arms around herself and barely touching her after-dinner tea.

Ryuuga smiles at her, wide and guileless like a spy or a liar or someone deadly honest. "Yagami-kun is very pretty," she says, and Light doesn't even have to feign the blush, because she's been told that a thousand times by a thousand people and it meant nothing, but Light also has a feeling that Ryuuga isn't just saying that because she finds her appearance to be aesthetically pleasing.

"...can we be friends?" she asks, staring deliberately down at the tablecloth, at the cooling tea and the crumbs scattered across expensive china. "I don't--I've never done this before, and--"

"Yagami-kun is very pretty," Ryuuga repeats, and passes a sugar cube across the table, like a secret or a promise or both, and Light hesitates a moment before she reaches out to make the trade, exchanging her own sugarless cup of tea for something she's sure isn't going to sit well on her tongue.

The sugar cube crunches in Light's teeth as Ryuuga makes a truly magnificent face at her sip of tea, and she passes the cup back with a loud "Bleh!" that makes Light giggle like a child.

By the time they finally leave the cafe, the sky is black beyond the city's glare and the air is cool and crisp. When she finally checks her phone, there are two voicemails from her mother wondering where she is.

They part at a street corner, trading cell phone numbers and emails and soft, deadly glances, and Light squeezes her hands one last time and steps back under the glow of a streetlight and watches the girl slip into the night like a dream, or a hallucination, or a ghost. Once she's turned the corner Light tilts her head back and grins up at the sky, giggles a little and spins a pirouette while her shinigami looks at her like she's crazy.

It's three in the morning when she finally makes it home, and she slips off her shoes and tiptoes upstairs with an easy grace, resigned to the teasing Sayu will heap on her head in the morning.

She wonders if her mother will guess that she was out with a girl.

* * *

"She's a part of the investigation, isn't she?" Light says to Ryuk and the ceiling, flopped back on her bed, still a little giggly, still a little giddy, more than a little thrilled with what she's found her new opposition to be. "They found me quick."

"Gonna kill her?" Ryuk asks, and that's as much confirmation as anything else.

"And give myself away? No way... besides, she's too much fun."

It's a little like terror, a little like nausea, this feeling, but at the same time it feels like she's finally starting to breathe. She's meant for this. This is her fight, her battle, and she's going to change the world, and it's going to be glorious.

"Say, Ryuk?"

"Yeah?"

"You think I should have kissed her?"


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flirtations.

Light is making the best of these last days before the new semester starts, carefully marking down preplanned names as she walks in the early morning light, then swallowing the evidence before she meets Ryuuga for a breakfast that slides into brunch that slides into junk food in the nearest park.

In the moments of in-between, she closes her eyes, breathes in, and thinks back on the swill she'd forced herself to swallow down, pile after pile of soppy shojo manga she'd swiped from her sister to make this her finest performance yet.

Two pairs of shoes are lying tucked underneath the bench, but only one pair of socks, and she made sure to wear shorts underneath her skirt just in case she wound up like this, perched awkwardly on the back of a bench, because they've been out often enough together that she already knows her dignity is going to get ruffled every time Ryuuga is around. It doesn't even matter, everyone who passes by stares at Ryuuga, not at her, and like this she can reach out and ruffle that glossy black hair as much as she wants. Ryuuga laughed her strange boy's chuckle for nearly thirty seconds straight when Light proclaimed herself queen of everything for managing to wrestle a good chunk of the unruly mess into a series of tiny braids, then demanded tribute in the form of an iced coffee, made properly, without heavy syrup or any whipped cream, and certainly no sprinkles on the top.

The manga had made hair-braiding seem much easier, but if you follow the conventions of the standard art style, Ryuuga is a boy, not a girl, and that's fine too, because Light knows perfectly well what stereotypes she herself falls into, and is trying to play them to their finest.

Light pastes on a smile as Ryuuga returns with a hideously frothy thing and an overstuffed crêpe. "That's not what I asked for, you know," she chides, and Ryuuga looks at her and the coffee and then eats the whipped cream right off the top. Then she holds the cup out between forefinger and thumb and Light wonders how she isn't dropping it.

"Enjoy your disgusting abomination," Ryuuga drones, and Light thinks of indirect kisses, the soft pink curl of her tongue, and ducks her head just a fraction to deliver a scolding that's interrupted more than once by her own feigned inability to keep a straight face while Ryuuga is overacting a dramatic reaction to her words--while taking exquisite care to make sure that none of the stuffing slid out of her crêpe, of course.

If she keeps losing her balance and having to catch it on Ryuuga's shoulders, and if she has to lean all the way down over her to pick up her coffee, and if her bare toes keep brushing against soft worn denim, well, so much the better. It suits her role, and it suits herself, because Ryuuga's playing back, offering aimless smiles and innocent replies, the quirky love interest to Light's eager young protagonist, and Ryuk's eyes had glazed over as she'd explained their game to him, a play inside a play that would be a waste of Kira's time if her match hadn't been hand-picked by L.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" she asks, using the excuse of taking the coffee as her cue to start the new scene, picking up the thread of lazy questioning that they'd begun two hours earlier, over coffee and puff pastries and a newspaper thoroughly dissected and analyzed in fifteen minutes, "a reclusive genius billionaire?"

"I," Ryuuga declares regally, "am never going to grow up." She bobs her head once in a decisive nod and takes a triumphant bite of her crêpe, which is hardly undermined at all when she gets whipped cream on her nose because she promptly goes cross-eyed and licks it off again.

Light flashes her a bright smile, but watches the shadows under her eyes and her Snow White complexion, thinks of how she must have slipped into one task force or another, trained to spy and be brilliant and be made just for her, and maybe she's a little bit jealous, that someone so like her actually got to take that step when she's still so young.

"Well _I'm_ going to grow up and join the police force," Light declares, leaning her weight back onto her hands to balance so her bare feet can swing free, "my parents won't be able to stop me anymore."

"Teenage rebellion is so passé," Ryuuga drawls, and Light reaches over and swats at her. Then she steals the strawberry that's about to slip free of the crêpe and plops it in her mouth with a triumphant smile.

"Teenage rebellion just took your strawberry," she says to her pose of exaggerated horror, "and I am going to be brilliant and beautiful and a better detective than my father."

"I believe you," Ryuuga says absently, still staring mournfully at her now-slightly-less overfull crêpe, "you could do anything with a mind like that."

Light freezes for a moment, just staring, because she's appalled that Ryuuga's breaking character and she knows she shouldn't be getting butterflies in her stomach with an enemy so sweet, but Kira would be cautious in this moment, suspicious, so she pretends it's still part of the game and slides down to the bench seat beside her and presses a kiss to her cheek.   


  
"So couldn't you," Light says softly, closing her eyes and drawing a deep breath, trying to memorize this, the feel of worn cotton beneath her fingertips, the soft dark hair tickling her cheek, the taste of strawberry and lies lingering bittersweet on her tongue.

Maybe it would be worth it to trade for the eyes, to learn her name and take her for a lover before she dies, but this game is so much fun. She'll have to kill her eventually, of course, and maybe she'll let the play stretch on that far, maybe she'll have a pretend girlfriend for a while. Maybe.

"I know," Ryuuga says blandly, "I told you I was never going to grow up."

Light opens her eyes, settles back and curls her lips in amused affection that is anything but feigned. "You're going to devote your university time to that?"

Ryuuga tilts her head to one side. Light tilts her own the other way just to be contrary. "One more way to prolong childhood," she says.

 _One more way to prolong the game,_ Light hears, and laughs and rests her chin on her shoulder, drops her free hand down to loop around her waist, pulls herself in close and tight and leans forward to take a delicate bite of the crêpe Ryuuga's holding up for her. Then she gags a little.

"Ryuuga! Did you dump a packet of sugar in that thing, too?!"

Ryuuga gives her a little aimless smile and a condescending pat on the cheek. "You didn't notice. Sloppy for a future detective."

* * *

"What are you doing?" Ryuk asks, and Light gives the pile of papers on her desk a disgusted look and smothers a sigh.

"Trying to decide on classes," she hisses through her teeth, "and planning Kira's actions for the next week, so shush."

"But I'm bored," Ryuk whines, and she thinks it's very unbecoming of a shinigami to complain when he was the one who dropped the notebook in the first place, "and hungry. You're so stingy now, I haven't had any apples in _days_."

"Ryuuga would notice," Light explains with more patience than she really feels, deciding on one execution every six hours for Wednesday, and no pattern at all for Thursday. The notes that will accompany them she'd dreamed up two nights ago, curled up in her bed after another dinner that had lasted until well after midnight, and maybe it was a little bit cruel, to taunt Ryuk like that, but he should understand the need to flirt back, when L was being so considerate by giving her Ryuuga.

"You always say that," Ryuk grumbles, and Light rolls her eyes and refrains from pointing out that she's only known the other girl for six days, that she's only been playing this game for five.

"It's her job to notice if I'm doing anything strange," Light says, tapping pen to paper and trying to decide how early she can get away with asking Ryuuga to make up the breakfast she'd skipped this morning, "so I can't do anything strange, including buying bushels of apples for no discernible reason. It doesn't fit my character, and it's not like the real me, so she'd assume it was something to do with Kira, and I can't risk that."

Light tunes out his grumbling as she turns back to her work, and when her phone buzzes, she doesn't even have to look at it, just picks it up, cradles it to her ear, and keeps on writing. "Ryuuga!" she says brightly, marking down a fatal seizure for a serial rapist for next Wednesday, "I'm still mad about you canceling our breakfast. Are we at least still on for dinner? --no, I dunno about that class, but have you heard anything about the professor for Western Philosophy?"

* * *

"Have you prepared your speech?" her mother asks, and she shrugs one shoulder and eyes the coffeepot predatorily. Being Kira and playing with Ryuuga is exhausting, and she's started to sleep in more in the mornings, because Ryuuga's idea of breakfast is whenever she gets hungry, which is usually every five minutes or so, but she's hung up on her twice when she's called at five in the morning, and Ryuuga almost certainly deserved it.

"A little," she says, by which she means no, and Sachiko sighs while Sayu laughs.

"You could at least try to be enthusiastic about your position," Sachiko says, "it's a rare thing to be so honored."

Light cocks her head to the side, glances at her sister through the veil of her lashes. Sayu sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes, and she smothers a smile before turning back to her mother. "The other freshman representative is a girl too, you know," she says, gently pointed, gently chiding.

"You know her?" her mother asks, and if the question's a bit sharper than the situation warrants, that just means she's noticed that Light hasn't been answering her phone when anybody in the family calls her.

"We met at the entrance exam," Light says, delicately, like this is awkward because they both know she hasn't had many--any--close friendships with other girls, and if Sayu's noticed... well, Sayu will have to grow up someday. "She's... interesting."

"Is she why you're never home anymore?" Sayu asks slyly, and Light has to do a quick reassessment of her. Then she reconsiders her reassessment because Sayu's the one who keeps begging her for the explicit yaoi manga that she's always been too cheap to buy.

"Shut up," she says with a lazy roll of her eyes, then jumps when her phone trills, a ringtone that Light never would have chosen herself, but she'd traded phones with Ryuuga and sworn not to change her selection, a pinkie swear over lunch and a musical choice that just barely pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in their game.

Ryuuga has no problem with breaking character precisely because she knows it annoys Light, but every time Light slips in a double-entendre Ryuuga very carefully and precisely fails to respond.

She's sure it comes as no surprise to anyone when she slips up to her own room to take the call, spends five minutes getting ready, and then flashes her mother and sister a brilliant smile and slides out the front door without a word. It suits what they know of her, what she's playing at for Ryuuga, and even if Kira would be just as secretive there's no way she'd be able to pull this off if she were playing Ryuuga's role--it would jar too much with her character at home.

They have a speech to plan, and probably lunch, and then tea, and then dinner, and fortunately for her own finances Ryuuga's always been very willing to indulge her in expensive coffee.

When she comes back home again, it's halfway past one in the morning, and her mother is waiting in the front room, a well-worn novel in her hand and a cup of tea beside her, and Light fidgets just a little, as is appropriate, but Sachiko just looks at her for a long moment, picks up her tea and turns the cup in her hands.

"Are you being safe, at least?" Sachiko says at last, and Light stares at her blankly, listening to the silence that she can barely hear through Ryuk's delighted cackling.

"...probably not," she says, because Kira and L's proxy shouldn't be courting, because one of them is going to wind up dying, because letting her this close is such a threat, because Ryuuga is so bright and so brilliant and so dangerous, because she's been scrambling to keep up with her duties and sparring with Ryuuga and trying to coax out her real name and occupation without letting anything slip, because she hasn't done her nails in a week and she ran out of eyeliner four days ago when she was using it to scribble down a name in a bathroom stall before meeting up with Ryuuga for breakfast.

"I see." Her mother's hands are tightening around her teacup, and Light bites her lip and looks down again, because that's what you're supposed to do, because it would be uncharacteristic of her to make a passionate outburst about true love because the notion is utterly ridiculous, because she's gotten a little silly about fake boyfriends before but now that her mother knows it's an act, she won't believe the same thing about a girl.

Light licks her lips, drifts closer to her mother, then sits down on the couch across from her. She can play this right, because it's almost the truth, except for all the lies. "I don't even know if she likes me back," she says, keeping her voice low, frightened. This isn't the place to play for confidence or certainty, and if her mother can believe this, then her mother can help shelter her activities as Kira, and no one will be the wiser. "I don't... I didn't know that I--I thought if I spent time dating boys instead it would go away. It's... it's supposed to be easy enough to hide if you know what you're doing."

Sachiko sighs heavily, sets her teacup down at her side, then looks up with a soft smile. "I'm glad," she says, "you always were so isolated, so unhappy at school... we thought about therapy, your father and I, but... you hide it well, but I know how much pride you have. How brilliant you are."

Light blinks at her, pastes a strained smile on her face. Does some quick recalculations. "You noticed...?"

"I may not be a genius like you," Sachiko says softly, "but I am still your mother." She's quiet for another moment while Light inclines her head in mock-humility, considers how she can use this.

"Whoever she is," Sachiko says quietly, setting down the teacup and rising to her feet, "does she make you happy?"

Light thinks about the scrap of paper in her pocket, the shinigami lounging near the ceiling, the teasing notes she's left in criminal's blood, the falling crime waves, the websites showering her with praise, the soft curve of Ryuuga's smile. "Yes," she says softly, turning a luminous smile on her mother, "I've never been this happy before."

* * *

Light is very careful to make it seem as though it's all she can do to keep from giggling as Ryuuga drones out the same eloquent speech she's just given in a fast-paced monotone that has the administrators in the front row looking blankly appalled, and more than half of the audience staring with varying measures of confusion, but she does spare a moment to shoot a dark glance at a round-faced girl near the front who's staring with a little _too_ much interest, because the girl is definitely not a threat but she honestly wasn't expecting anyone else to see her quite the same way, and she's more than a little annoyed that someone else _does_.

She brushes up against her as they start down the stairs just enough to make it visible that it's not an accident, and is rewarded with a quicksilver flash of a smile and long fingers threading through her own.

"Want to know a secret?" Ryuuga murmurs, and Light glances over at her, the impish light in her dark eyes and the soft curve of her lip, and thinks _yes_ and _always_ and _time to play_. She sidles a little bit closer, hands clasped and touching hip to hip, and ducks her head down against her shoulder, lets her smile and her half-lidded eyes make the agreement for her.

"I'm L," Ryuuga says softly, warm against her ear like the secrets Sayu used to share when they were small, and suddenly she can't breathe.

She doesn't know how to respond to this, doesn't know what to think, doesn't know what this move means, does that mean the game's over now or--no, she wouldn't do that--would she?

Somewhere in between the shock and the rage there's a thrill like electricity down her spine, because even if it's a lie it's gorgeous, it makes her fingers tingle and makes her heart flutter, because it's the prettiest trap she's ever seen.

"Really?" is all that needs to be said, because they've spoken of this before, Kira and L and the ridiculous spin the media's put on things, and she can feel her heart beating a triphammer, but Ryuuga just tilts her head and smiles.

Light pulls her lips into a nervous smile, because that fits, because she doesn't know how to respond to it, so she closes her eyes for a moment and lets herself fall back into character, reminds herself that this is her beautiful and mysterious would-be lover and she's just given her a shock, and this is no place for an interrogation, so because she's a good and proper girl she'll swallow her questions until later, she'll try and remain calm but let the nervousness and uncertainty shine through.

When her eyes open again, it's only natural to step closer, to press against her side, and they sit through the rest of the ceremony curled against each other like she would never have tolerated from anyone else, like sisters or lovers or both. There's probably some poetry in it, in their clasped hands, something deep and symbolic about the clear polish and neatly-trimmed cuticles and the nails bitten down to the quick, something about fingertips and lives and lies, something about blood and murder and justice, but she can't quite grasp it, and that's the problem with being a genius, you think too much when you're nervous and every time else besides, and if she opens up her lips to speak of it she knows, _knows_ that she would understand.

It would also give her away, so Light keeps her lips sealed and her grip warm and affectionate, and knows that she understands that, too, and that's why she's not saying anything either, because this is a game and she's made her move, but she's not going to tip her hand, not this early, because part of acknowledging the blow is pretending that it never happened at all, but there's room for this, quiet admiration tucked into fear and adrenaline, a hint of awe tucked into breathlessness for the sheer audacity of the move.

The speeches that aren't their own are trite and boring, and Light spends the time trying to calm her breathing and heartbeat, hoping to disguise the fright with the thrill, and it's probably a bad sign how easy that is, to cast little glances at her and know that underneath the plastered-on adoration it still makes sense if it's just wonder, that it still makes sense if it's just shock instead of horror.

The car and the butler make her smile, in-character and out, and Light lingers at the window, indulging in soft pointless chatter and staring into the clear cool blankness in her eyes, and she admires that mercilessness, somewhere beyond the fright and anger, somewhere behind the upside-down inside-out feeling that's carefully tucked away behind the shy aversion of her eyes and the slow parting brush of their hands.

"Meet me for dinner?" Ryuuga says, and her agreement's already slipped past her lips before she's even conscious of saying anything at all.

Ryuk actually flinches at the screaming fit she later has into the pillow, but seems delighted when the rage melts into giggling, when stung pride makes her bare her teeth in a shark's smile and admiration makes her sigh, and she wonders if this is what it's supposed to feel like when you're dancing, or drunk, or in love.

She spends two hours changing clothes, trying to decide which way to part her hair, if she needs lip gloss or not, if the scrap of the Death Note is better hidden in a hairclip or tucked inside her bra, if Ryuuga will notice a pen tucked into her socks or if she should try and hide it in her sleeve instead.

In the end, she keeps the Note in her bra and the pen in her sock and tells Ryuk to stay at home, please, his leering whenever they hold hands is really creepy.

Light takes a deep breath, twirls before the mirror one more time, and goes out to meet her enemy in a simple black skirt and a soft sweater, because she's never said a word but she's pretty sure Ryuuga likes her best when she looks comfortable, with her hair undone and her lips and eyes bare, simple and clean and graceful, untouched by the stifling expectations of the world. If they're dropping the game tonight, if a new one is going to take its place...

"L," Kira whispers into the warm evening air, face turned to the sky, one hand pressed over her heart, "I promise I'll never disappoint you."


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dancing.

She walks into the empty restaurant a little cautiously, a little like she doesn't know what she's doing, and when Ryuuga turns to look at her, one quick razor glance from head to toe, she lifts her chin and squares her shoulders, lets her real smile slide across her face, and says, "So... who won?"

"We just ran out of time," Ryuuga says mildly. "But wasn't it fun while it lasted?"

"The best," Light admits honestly, and when Ryuuga offers her hand, she takes it, laces their fingers together, thinks about lifting it to kiss. Doesn't, but it's a near thing, and she can tell by the quirk of Ryuuga's lips that she's noticed it too. "Thank you. Did you find what you were looking for?" _And what have you learned, L-that-may-be?_ she wonders, not bothering to hide the curiosity that she's sure shows in the tilt of her head, the precise fall of her hair against her cheek a deliberate tell she'd designed to look attentive and thoughtful, even when her thoughts were a thousand miles away. _What have you learned that I have not?_

Ryuuga has a shinigami's smile, but on her, it's beautiful. "I found Light-kun."

"And?"

"You're perfect."

Light smiles. "So are you," she says in return, because it's true, because even if they only had been girls playing, it would still be true.

"Yes, I know," Ryuuga says, and Light laughs.

* * *

"Why'd you tell me?" she asks when the time is right, shoes abandoned again, legs tucked up underneath her, because the restaurant is just a little too chilly and they have an entire section all to themselves, and that's really the only downside to the situation at all, if she's not counting Ryuk still hanging over her shoulder.

"I felt like it," Ryuuga says, and looking at her, the entrees she'd shoved across the table with her nose crinkled, the elaborate fortress she's constructing with cherries and toothpicks and tiny cubes of sponge cake, Light can almost believe her. It's a testament to her skill, and she acknowledges that in the dip of her chin, the careless roll of her eyes, the laughter in her voice when she next speaks.

"You liar," Light says, "spread the whipped cream out, you know perfectly well that the cakes will hold together better that way. And tell me the real reason."

Ryuuga ignores both her advice and her words. "You already know it."

"I already suspect it," Light returns crisply, "but I want you to say it out loud."

"Why?" Ryuuga asks it so flatly that it doesn't really count as a question, but she'll answer it just the same. She'd answer her anything just to keep her attention, and if that's a frightening thought, it's only because Ryuuga's the most dangerous thing she's ever seen, it's only because she's L, or L's proxy, or something in between.

"Because I do."

Ryuuga frowns. "Light-kun is very demanding."

"If you mean to say bossy, you should say bossy. Prevarication does not suit you."

It doesn't. Lies, truths concealed in blatant rudeness, vicious little jabs and half-twisted truths, but she doesn't like distractions, especially when they're so halfhearted. Light wonders a little why she's bothering, if this is supposed to be the start of the new game, or if it's just another test--that's probably the most likely, so she'll play along for now. "Now say it."

Ryuuga rolls her eyes, heaves an exaggerated sigh, swirls a fragment of cake around in the whipped cream, then picks it up to examine it. Then she sets it down again, and Light promptly and very pointedly steals it.

She's halfway through slicing it down the middle with very exact and meticulous motions when her companion speaks again.

"Your father is working with me," Ryuuga says, deliberately slowly, blatantly ignoring Light's theft in favor of eating the half-constructed shish-kabob that was once about to form the second balustrade in the fortress wall. "But I like you better."

Ryuuga takes a moment to chew, removes the toothpick from her teeth with a dainty tug, and drops it carelessly onto the spotless tablecloth. There's something a little bit ominous but more impressive about the way it sticks upright in the thick linen. "And anyway, you're Kira."

Light stares, hands frozen in position, before she takes a breath and deliberately sets the knife down. Behind and above her, Ryuk cackles gleefully, but she hadn't told him about this when she'd told him about their game, he thinks that she's supposed to be shocked here.

Ryuuga knows better, so she hums an aimless little tune instead and resumes building her castle.

"...you said it," Light says at last, keeping her voice mild, lacing her fingers together, deeply pleased as Ryuk's laughter abruptly chokes off. _Ha ha,_ she thinks pointedly, and very carefully keeps her tone even when she continues to speak. "I wasn't altogether sure you would."

Ryuuga, predictably, doesn't bother to look up from her current construction project. Light figures if she could see him properly, she'd be staring up in fascination at Ryuk's odd little delighted dance, because it's certainly distracting _her_ , and anything she notices is something Ryuuga will notice as well.

Small favors from the ace up her sleeve.

"Light-kun is more than bright enough to figure out why," Ryuuga says, and pokes at the toothpick with a finger. It wobbles, but only just.

"Yes," Light agrees, and tilts her chin down, considers her folded hands. The polish on one of her nails is flaking, and she makes a mental note to fix it later, not too soon, because being unpolished for just long enough will make her look flustered, but taking too long to fix it will make her suspicious. "Conventional morality and a desire to protest my own innocence should come into play here, but we both know better than that."

"It is telling," Ryuuga remarks after a short silence, glancing up again, "that your initial response to such an accusation is to be flattered."

Light's lips curve into a soft smile of their own accord, and she leans back a little, tilts her head to regard the other girl through half-lidded eyes. "You found me," she says slowly, "and you played with me, even though I didn't know why. Now I finally know the reason. It's not a good reason, but regardless of the circumstances, you found me."

"A dangerous thing for Kira to admit," Ryuuga says softly, and she wonders how a voice so low and rough can sound like drawing steel. It's a thing she'd like to imitate, but her own alto is too smooth for it, so she'll have to settle for ice instead. "I wonder why you do."

Light shrugs one shoulder, lets her smile widen just enough to be rueful, not quite enough to be dangerous. "I'm not Kira. I have nothing to lose by admitting that I am pleased that you found me worthy of your attentions, regardless of what your intentions were. I am aware that it is not a normal response, and that perhaps I cast myself under more suspicion by not trying to conceal it, but that decision is ultimately yours, if you are who you say you are."

"You are not, and neither am I," Ryuuga says lightly, plucking another cherry free from the plate and adding it to her own.

Light shrugs again, inclines her head a bit more deeply. "I suppose I should thank you for taking the time to play with me," she says softly, warmly because she's never had so much fun before, because she's never had a chance to be so ruthless and so free, because she likes this, knife-fighting with sweet words and sweeter smiles, likes the way Ryuuga looks at her like she's trying to scrape Kira out because she _knows_ that she's somewhere inside her. "It was a wonderful game."

"Unfortunately for Light-kun," Ryuuga says simply, placing a cherry down against the lower layer of cake as a brace, "by her words she has only implicated herself further."

"Indeed?" Light inquires, raising an eyebrow. "I can understand how my words would indicate unwarranted interest in you on my part, but how do you reconcile the difference in goals between myself and Kira?"

"Just because you hate the world," Ryuuga says, not looking up from her castle as she adds another cherry support, "doesn't mean that you're going to destroy it."

Light breathes in sharply and tightens her grip on her own fingers, deliberately counting out the seconds until her knuckles turn white. Then she unclenches her fists and smooths out imaginary wrinkles in the tablecloth with fingers that don't shake. "But I want to," she says simply, "and you know that, too."

Maybe she does, just a little, even now, and maybe if the Death Note hadn't slipped from the skies into her own hands she would truly want the world to burn, maybe she would have figured out another way to cleanse it of its filth and its own stupidity, because up until now she's never really seen its beauty, never quite realized that lovely things could come from somewhere and something that isn't her own.

The Death Note changed everything, and she'll always be thankful to Ryuk for that, even though his incessant cackling is annoying and his constant demands for apples makes her want to strangle him.

The heckling from above is also getting old.

"Light-kun is too intelligent to believe in a goal so futile," Ryuuga says, and adds another cherry. They look like a bloody syrupy mess at the base of her tower, and Light wonders if it's deliberate, a metaphor in cake and cream and fresh fruit, and if it is, maybe she's just a little bit flattered, maybe she likes it a little too much for her own good.

"Should not Light-kun therefore be too intelligent to believe in goals as futile as Kira's?" she says delicately, and hides a smile as Ryuuga tilts her chin up to fix her with a curious stare.

"An interesting question for Kira to ask," Ryuuga says, and presses a thumb to her lips. "Why do you?"

Light shrugs one shoulder, averts her eyes, traces an idle doodle on the table that should be sufficient to express a low level of anxiety and a considerable amount of thoughtfulness. "I would be lying if I said I didn't understand Kira's motives," she says softly, "acting alone one is limited by necessity, but I suppose carrying out the ideal beyond a single lifetime would depend on how Kira's managing to do it. All tyrants fall in the end, after all, it's just a question of how their power becomes diffused."

"An interesting way to put it. You consider Kira a tyrant and not simply a serial killer?" The tone of Ryuuga's voice indicates which she believes is the proper appellation, but Light rather likes the flavor of disdain that weighs down 'tyrant,' and thinks she wouldn't mind ruling the world, even though her main concern is with making it safe. The savior of one nation is the damnation of the other, after all.

"I think becoming a tyrant is Kira's ultimate goal," Light says, which is a lie, "perhaps not in the traditional sense of the word, but we've seen ostentatious displays of power simply because you--if you really are L--have been taunting him."

"Him?" Ryuuga says pointedly, and Light smiles slightly.

"A little too transparent there, huh?"

"I am underwhelmed."

"It was worth a shot."

"Now I am insulted."

"I didn't say it was a good shot."

Ryuuga smiles. If it were anyone else, it would be a hideous smile, but Light likes all the razor edges in it, likes its sharpness and deceit. "Don't you want to impress me?"

Light smiles back, careful, polished, poised. Not ostentatious, showing no teeth, the faintest hint of gloss to deepen the color, a little crinkle in the corner of her eyes, just enough to be politely amused, never enough to be rude or taunting. "Of course, but impressing you would only further your suspicions, would it not?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Kira and I have a rather adversarial relationship."

"One-upmanship? Then I'd better not impress you at all."

"Far too late, Light-kun."

She drops her gaze, pretending at flattery that they both know is genuine. "So where do we go from here?"

"I tail you openly from now on," she says, calm and careless, "and in time I will decide if it's worth inviting you into my investigation."

Light raises an eyebrow. "I think I've spent more time with you now than I have with anybody else outside of my family in my entire life, but I suppose that's fair, we _were_ playing before. You're testing me?"

"Of course," Ryuuga says blandly, "ordinarily these tests would be administered by a go-between, but they're dead now, because you killed them."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Light says mildly, but lets a hint of frustration slip into her voice, "but if that happened, I'm sorry for your loss and I can understand why you'd need to replace a team." She hesitates, slow and deliberate, then tilts her chin up, makes sure her voice is soft and sympathetic but also clear and sincere, because Kira wouldn't say this, because Kira wouldn't dare to admit something so dangerous. "But I'm not sorry that their loss brought you to me."

"You are my chief suspect," Ryuuga says lazily, "for a case of this magnitude, personal involvement was more or less inevitable." Then she tilts her head to the side, sets down her tea, and reaches across the table and pats Light's cheek, soft and delicate, like a child. "Also, Light-kun is very pretty."

Light laughs and considers tilting her head into her palm, but Ryuuga's already pulling away again, so she swallows her disappointment and speaks again. "Somehow I doubt that's relevant--and if it is, don't mention that aspect of this relationship to my father. I assume he agreed to this?"

"Of course," Ryuuga says, like she wouldn't have done the same thing without his permission, which is a lie.

Light raises an eyebrow but accepts the falsehood for what it is. "An appeal to his sense of honor, I presume. Tired, but effective."

Ryuuga scoops up some of the whipped cream and examines it critically. "Your father is a good man, if bland."

It's an actual compliment. Light's a little surprised. "I do not disagree, although I do wonder how much your methods must clash with his own."

"Authority is a useful tool," Ryuuga says, and puts down the spoon and reaches for the cherries again. "It was pointed out to him that Light-kun is very brilliant, well-connected to the police, and highly observant, so she is also the one person in the world with the most likely chance of being Kira. Also she could simply be bored out of her mind. Perhaps both at the same time."

Light rolls her eyes, ignoring Ryuk's delighted cackle. "Of course I was bored out of my mind, but that doesn't mean I was going to go around killing people. You must have been bored too at some point in your life, and judging by your profession you've never done anything like that either."

"Perhaps," Ryuuga hums, and devours two cherries in quick succession. Light stares when she eats the stems, too, and then giggles when she spits them back out, perfectly knotted in the middle.

She rests an elbow on the table and drops her gaze down to the cherry stems, back up again, and offers Ryuuga a playful smile. "Hmm, so it _was_ a pity our game had to end."

"I do apologize, but I am fairly certain I am not quite Light-kun's type," Ryuuga says, but there's a soft curve to her lips that indicates just how much she's relishing the lie.

Light props the other elbow on the table and her chin on her hands and grins back. "We could have staged a dramatic breakup when you accused me of being Kira. That could have been fun."

"I believe your father would like me even less if I broke your heart, Light-kun."

"He doesn't like you?"

"Very few members of most law enforcement agencies actually like me, Light-kun."

"I can't imagine why," Light says, taking a sip of her tea. "Some would say what you've done so far is illegal, unethical, and immoral."

"Coming from Kira, I take that as a compliment."

"I'm not Kira."

"Coming from a Kira suspect who is also a liar, I take that as a compliment."

Light stifles a snicker behind a ladylike sip of tea. "You're welcome." She sips again, sets the teacup back down, and turns her gaze upwards through her lashes, because it makes her look younger, softer, more appealing. "So why abandon our game?"

Ryuuga smiles. "I found what I needed."

"I'm not Kira," Light says patiently, "and I won't flatter myself by thinking I could have caught your attention any other way. Therefore..."

"Tell me why I found you when I was looking for Kira," Ryuuga says, and drops another cherry in her mouth. The juice stains her lips like blood, and Light clasps her hands together on top of the tablecloth, parts her own lips, and speaks.

* * *

"How was your date?" her mother asks, and Light ducks her head down and smiles a little to herself, fidgeting with her hands lightly.

"It wasn't a real date," she says, "we were just celebrating our first day of university together."

"You were gone for a long time," Sachiko says, "although you returned much earlier than usual."

"She has a meeting in the morning," Light admits, tugging on her skirt a little. "So we couldn't... anyway, it wasn't a real date."

"Maybe for her it wasn't," Sachiko says in a tone that's faintly reproving. "Does she even know how you feel about her?"

"...not sure," Light says, "I don't--mmm. It's... I don't want to mess this up."

"...I've never known you to not chase after what you want," Sachiko says, voice just a little too level. "What's changed?"

Light smiles faintly, reaches a hand up and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, lifts her free arm and hugs it close to her chest. "It's... she said I was pretty. Today. It's the first time she's noticed that I..."

Sachiko draws in a deep breath, rises to her feet and reaches out a care-worn hand and tilts Light's chin up. There's something very sincere about her gaze, Light thinks, and is careful not to meet her eyes, playing at shyness and uncertainty when she's never felt so serene. "You've only known her for three months," Sachiko says softly, "and already you've shown more feeling for her than I've seen from you in years."

Light blinks rapidly, hoping it will cause tears to well, and if it doesn't, the effect will still be the same. "I... I really like her," she says, in a careful voice. "I'm not going to ruin my chances of being her friend just because I--"

"Oh, Light," her mother says, and looks like she's thinking about hugging her. It's the perfect moment to strike, because especially now she can't be weighed down by her, the force of her sincerity and affection, and if it ruins her perfect image just a little, Ryuuga's changed her enough to justify the poison.

"...mama," she says softly, taking one deliberate step back, "why do you only ever ask me about her?"

Sachiko draws in a soft, sharp breath, and Light looks up to meet her gaze, making sure to keep her expression gentle, her hands still. "Am I really so alien to you that it takes a thing like this to make you understand me?"

Her mother is quiet for a long moment, and in the fine lines of her face Light can read every stress of the last eighteen years, raising a daughter she could never understand. "And if it does?" Sachiko asks, voice low and unsteady.

Light draws in a carefully measured breath and exhales it just as slowly. "Ryuuga always understands me," she says, "she knows who I am, what I want. What I dream about. She's the only one who's ever--" and she lets her voice crack, just a little, bites the inside of her lip to force tears to her eyes, "please don't talk to me about her anymore," she finishes thickly, and ducks out of the embrace, tilts her head down, and whispers "I'm going to bed," and then rushes upstairs before her mother can stop her.

* * *

"What was that all about?" Ryuk demands, dangling upside-down from the ceiling, and Light taps the pen thoughtfully against her lips and marks down another death. She's been cutting a swathe through Indonesia for the past two nights, and maybe it's time to switch locations, again, to call a new nation to her cause.

"Ryuuga's testing me," she replies, "I'm not going have the time to keep playing with mom and Sayu once things really get going, especially if she was serious about inviting me into the investigation."

"So was all that lies?" he asks. "Seems pretty complicated for something so simple."

"Of course not," Light replies, idly marking down the last name and closing the notebook with a proprietary pat. "It wouldn't work so well if it weren't true, after all."

"Wait, so does that mean you actually--"

Light leans back in her chair and offers her shinigami an upside-down smile. "You've still got a lot to learn about humans, don't you, Ryuk?"

He laughs.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude.

"Ryuuga," Light says, and reaches over and links pinkies with her, "I was wondering where you were."

"Light-kun is not privy to that information," Ryuuga says, lifting their joined hands to inspect their fingers like a particularly intriguing piece of evidence, "and I did not expect her to wait for me outside the classroom."

"We didn't spend all that time picking classes for you not to be there with me," Light says, "this is kind of a terrible start to your official day of tailing me."

"Light-kun is very demanding for a suspect," Ryuuga chides agreeably, and Light rolls her eyes and tugs her into the classroom.

* * *

School is wonderful, because thanks to their introduction she's been strange from the beginning, and no one really expects a model student out of a genius, not anymore, not when she refuses to stray from Ryuuga's side, not when on the first day of classes they prove perfectly capable of derailing an entire class into a debate on the slanderous practices of Greek orators that lasts later on, through a late tea and an even later dinner, and the preoccupation is a wonder and a distraction and a clever tactic all in one, and the satisfaction in all of that is that Ryuuga's running on just as much distraction as she is, that they're tripping each other up with questions designed to trap and linger, and sometimes she wants to reach out and pull her close, closer than usual, slip her hands in her pockets and lean in for a kiss, but that's a dangerous thing to want, and both Kira and L are always, always cautious.

If they'd still been playing their game, their first kiss would have been three days ago, an awkward sweet moment in the sunshine, and Light regrets it, just a little, that she's never going to have that chance again.

Attraction's a fine thing to play on, a more dangerous thing to use, so she holds her hand during class and her arm while they're out walking, and pretends that she's shy enough not to take that last step, even though her dreams are filled with heat and chapped lips and low laughter, even though she lets her gaze linger much longer than she should because the best lies are made of truth, and in her own way, L is beautiful.

She starts trading skirts for slacks, and makeup is more trouble than it's worth, now, because there's only one person to perform for and she's already seen right through it. It makes it easier, too, less time for preening means more time for subtleties and intrigue, more time to hide bits of the note and smuggle glances at newspapers and television screens, and if her mother's staying quiet and worried and her sister is beyond suspicious, that's fine too.

One of these days, Light thinks, she might just try things Ryuuga's way and ditch the bra altogether, but it's just so undignified. _But then again, I'm growing up,_ she considers silently, tilts her head back to stare at the sky and bare her teeth where no one can see, _and isn't coming out in college the usual way to do it? Fit into the little box and no one thinks twice about it, they just move along with their insignificant lives like the sheep they are._

Typical, typical, _boring_ and she'd die of ennui without Ryuk's gift, so she keeps indulging him in apples and the occasional game of Mario Kart, and it's not so bad, really, being friends with a thing that's not quite a boy or a man, not really. Much better than she would have ever expected, anyway, and it's amazing how much she can see, it's amazing how the world has spilled itself open and revealed both rot and wonder, and she wants to save it even more, now that she knows what it can create, that one a billion chance for greatness.

It's in her, she knows, that brightness, and maybe in others, but what's worse is when it's snuffed out, or worse, never allowed to grow, and she can't stand it, she can't stand what the world has become just because people are so petty and selfish, she can't _stand_ the injustice of it all.

It's only circumstance, it's only a chance, and it's ridiculous that such tiny insignificant details sway the whole course of a life, shape and location and identity shouldn't mean anything, all that should matter is that the few who deserve it can _try_ , and maybe Light's jealous, just a little, of all that Ryuuga already has that Light never could reach, not like this, maybe there's a hot thick knot of rage somewhere in her belly every time she watches her flaunt her careless wealth and every time she catches a glimpse of what might be L behind Ryuuga's endless eyes.

If Ryuuga were a boy, Light knows, she would hate him.

But she's not, and that makes all the difference.

* * *

"I'm not a misandrist," she laughs over cookies and tea, "I hate everyone equally."

"You despise weakness and those who profit from it," Ryuuga says, pointing the handle of her teaspoon like an accusation, or maybe she just likes the shine of the overhead light against the silver, "like all idealists."

"I'm too cynical to be an idealist," Light retorts, halfway tempted to roll her eyes just to make sure the reaction's exaggerated enough, "and not kind enough, either."

"What happens to a dream deferred?" Ryuuga asks abruptly, the English as natural on her tongue as Japanese, maybe moreso, a blurry hint of an accent buried somewhere in the sharpness of the question. "Broken visionaries break more than themselves, given the right motives and weapons."

Light spreads her hands across the table, palms up, offers her a smile. "A little too soft to hold weapons, don't you think?"

She used to hate her hands, when she was younger, the tennis not enough to give her calluses, not enough to make her seem strong and capable--it's the one thing she envies, not having her father's heavier build, even though being lithe and graceful is its own weapon, even though it's so pathetically _easy_ to let her smile and the fall of her hair do her work for her--and then, somewhere along the way, she stopped caring, learning that artifice was already a given and that she needed to prove nothing because she was already better, already stronger than anyone else, and she's never had anyone to impress, not before this, not before she was finally given the chance she's needed all along.

It's all different now, a gentle show of vulnerability to soften her image, blunt all her razor edges, and she always feels like laughing when they're together, even though it's so dangerous, but she can't stop playing the game, not like this, not when there's adrenaline singing in her veins and a thousand plans buzzing in her mind.

Being Kira feels like running past exhaustion straight into euphoria.

Ryuuga leans across the table, a girl in gargoyle form, and drags one fingertip down her palm, almost too lightly to be a touch at all, but it sends an electric shiver down Light's spine, the bait offered and accepted, a gentle spin and dip in their dance, the barest hint of a whisper as the knife slips from one hand to the other, and she's been dreaming in metaphors since this all started, and maybe it's silly and superfluous but it's also wonderfully _fun_ , and she hasn't been bored once since this all started, not even for a moment.

"Your hands aren't this soft by choice," Ryuuga says, her voice like a stone dropped into water, too rounded to be sharp, but humans smashed in skulls well before knives were invented. "And everything is a weapon, if you use it right."

Light chuckles and tilts her head down, playing at shyness, but there's a warm thrum somewhere, low in her belly, and she curls her fingers quickly, just fast enough to catch Ryuuga's before she pulls away again. _Caught you_ , she thinks, and ignores the _for now_ that lingers in the back of her mind like a threat, or, better still, a promise. "And you think I'd choose to fight?"

"I know you did." Calm and clear, as though the sky is blue, and water is wet, and Light Yagami is Kira, and it's still a little amazing, even now when she should be used to it, that she's still letting herself be charmed.

Light glances up through her lashes, squeezes her fingers a little too tightly. Considers a grimace and settles for a vague tightness in the lips and eyes instead. "I've told you I'm not Kira," she says, "I wish you would believe me."

Ryuuga tilts her head to the side, a cue she doesn't really use the way she's supposed to, and regards her thoughtfully. "I wish I could," she replies, and it's stupid, stupid to have that hope jump into her throat, because of course she's lying, and she's so good at it that it's wonderful, each sweet word a drop of poison.

"...so we're stuck," Light murmurs after a long moment, letting her grip relax, but still not letting go. She's never going to let go, not until she needs to, and that's its own threat, maybe she's challenging herself too much, except that could never be, because she must be perfect. "You'll never believe me no matter what I say."

Ryuuga does a perfect imitation of a disdainful snort. "Light-kun is Kira, therefore it would be foolish to believe anything she says."

Light thinks about stretching her leg across the booth to kick her off balance, maybe, or tugging so sharply she crashes down straight into the crockery, but she's not that petty. "Light-kun is not Kira, but Ryuuga might be L, therefore it would be foolish to believe anything that she says."

That perks Ryuuga's interest, Light can tell from the way her weight shifts, the sudden tension in fingers that were content to lie slack in her grip. "Why foolish?" she asks, and Light smiles, just a little, on the inside, because this is easily one of the most childish things she's ever done, a gentle tug-of-war over china worth more than her whole house, probably.

So she smirks, making sure it's extra-smarmy, and says, "The great and mysterious L is supposed to be a scraggly, socially inept genius who hates shoes and is allergic to hairbrushes? One would think that L, of all people, would know how to blend into a crowd and adjust accordingly."

Ryuuga's disappointed, she can tell in the faint slump of her shoulders and the slight narrowing of her eyes, but she won't even let something like this go. "The terrible Kira is supposed to be a pretty, brilliant college student who is remarkably antisocial despite her carefully-constructed popularity on campus? One would think that Kira, of all people, would know how to blend into a crowd and adjust accordingly."

Light smirks to disguise the laughter that wants to bubble up. "Parroting my words back isn't making a point."

Ryuuga smirks back at her, a mirror in disheveled disaster. "Rather, it is making the perfect point."

"Which is?"

"Like L, Kira doesn't care."

It would make her pause if it weren't so true, but she lets the silence linger for a moment, simply because it would be appropriate to do so. When the proper amount of time has passed--shorter than she'd allow with anyone else, but this is Ryuuga, after all--she leans forward, shifting her weight onto her elbows, the picture of attentive innocence. "How so? One would think it would rather be the opposite."

Ryuuga looks like she might want to pontificate if she only knew how, and Light is briefly amused by the mental image that conjures, though it's broken once Ryuuga starts to speak again. "One may assume that Kira is operating under a twisted interpretation of the same ideal as L--that is, the dedication is to justice."

Light raises an eyebrow just to be contrary. "I disagree--that implies rather a lot of caring on both of their parts."

"Caring about justice. Not about people."

"I care about people," Light says, leaning back again, just enough to seem affronted, not enough to seem offended. "I love my family, I enjoy the company of others."

"You enjoy my company," Ryuuga corrects, as though she's never leaned back at all, "as I enjoy yours. Both of us scorn those we consider to be beneath us, but feel obligated to care for them, as they are incompetent to care for themselves."

Light shakes her head, a little too hard, because enthusiasm makes her look even younger and ruffled hair just adds to the effect. "That's cruel."

"You disagree?" It's said calmly, like a casual observation, and Light almost snorts in disgust, because that's a bit blatant, isn't it, Ryuuga?

But she pretends to consider it, looks down again, admiring the clean lines of her forearms against the crisp whiteness of the tablecloth, the awkward jumble where their hands are still joined, the smoothness of Ryuuga's sleeves, only shades lighter than her skin, the delicate pink china so ridiculous that it's almost useless, and thinks about beauty and dreams, thinks about power and what it looks from the outside, for the servers, maybe, the other diners so far away they might be on another planet, thinks about the three dozen men dying, maybe right now, maybe ten minutes from now, because she judged them and found them wanting.

"You know I don't," she says at last, "that's what makes this awful. Do you know what if feels like, to finally meet the right person, and find that she thinks you're a serial killer?"

"I know what it is like to finally meet the right person and find that she _is_ a serial killer," Ryuuga says, and Light lets her nails bite in, this time, because she deserves it, because if this were real it would hurt, but it doesn't.

"Cruel," she repeats, "it's cruel for you to treat me this way. I might be your suspect but I don't deserve your ire. I shouldn't even be with you so much, not when everything I do just makes you suspect me more." She blinks, hard enough to force tears to well. "You know how I feel about you, and you still treat me like a murderer."

"I cannot treat Light-kun like anything but what she is," Ryuuga says, and then she's lifting her free hand and brushing her knuckles against Light's cheek, soft and delicate, half a caress with all the force of a mortal blow. "And because I am L, so Light-kun must be Kira."

Light stares at her through damp lashes, at the sad, thoughtful curve of her lips, and for a moment can't _breathe_.

"...I'm jealous," she says at last. "If I ever killed anyone, it would be Kira, for distracting you from me."

"I wonder," Ryuuga says, and when she lets her hand thump back to the table, Light is quick to catch that, too, and lace their fingers together, counting her own heartbeat and the slow, steady sound of her breath, thinking of numbers ticking down, slowly, one by one, into stillness.

* * *

"That was pretty cozy!" Ryuk cackles, later, once they've parted, a long goodbye on another street corner, like long-ago lovers. "Why don't you try to get her on your side?" and suddenly it's all Light can do to not hurl her philosophy textbook right through his head.

"How _dare_ you," she hisses, fingers clenching into a claw around the pen, "never insult her like that again."

"Why's that an insult?" he wonders, "you like her, she likes you, why wouldn't you want to convince her that you're right?"

"I do," Light snarls, because of course she's thought about it, how much easier being Kira would be with Ryuuga's resources and power, how brilliant they could be together, how easy it would be to sway the world to their cause.

Of course she's thought about it. Of course she has, she's not a fool and she's not blind, and emotions aren't weakness, they're just a liability, but there's strength in that too, because she won't--she won't _ever_ \--

If only Ryuuga weren't so perfect they could be perfect together, but she is, and they can't be, and there's no sense in grieving over what could never be.

"I'd love it if she joined me but she's _better_ than that."

"Better than what?" Ryuk wonders, and Light rolls her eyes and goes back to writing down names, quietly fuming, quietly feeling a little sick, quietly feeling like she might explode. "Sometimes I don't get you, Light."

Ryuk is an idiot. _L would never sink that low_ , she thinks viciously, and carves out a swathe through a series of high-profile serial killers, _she would never_.

You don't dance with anyone who isn't your equal, and you don't duel with someone who isn't willing to kill you or die trying, and this isn't some other world, this isn't paradise, this is the world she's got to save, this is the destiny she's chosen for herself, and she _knows_ it was right, she's known since the first time she turned her head to meet dark eyes across a crowded classroom.

Light knows.

Knowing doesn't make it any easier, but the world is worth it, and if she keeps telling herself that, she'll eventually believe it, because Light Yagami is a consummate liar.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slip of the mask.

* * *

It's two minutes into class and Light's already bored and lonely, because L's slipped away again, and she might be taking the opportunity to remove the ringleaders of an international prostitution scheme, but it's barely a challenge to be taking notes and names at the same time, and she stifles a sigh and idly starts planning out the rest of the day, detours for an apple she wouldn't otherwise be able to pick up for Ryuk, a half-formed plan for eliminating whatever new scum rises to the top after she's skimmed the leadership of the prostitution ring off.

Ryuuga could be anywhere right now, plotting anything, chasing down the false trails she's laid or, worse, chasing _her_ down, and she can't stand it, the attacks that she can't see coming, and she'll just drive herself into a spiral thinking about it, so she inhales deep and clean and turns a smile towards the lovely girl who's been trying to catch her attention for the last eight minutes.

"I'm sorry Takada-san, what were you saying...?"

* * *

Takada-san, Light decides murderously, an hour later, is somewhat annoying. She should know better than to assume that someone with good grades actually has a brain, really, and maybe that's unkind, maybe she should sympathize more, but this is _tiresome_ , remembering how to play this game at its painfully sluggish pace, remembering how to smile and flatter a pretty girl who clearly is besotted with her, who would never dream of laughing in her face, who would never lift a hand against her, who wears her hair just right and smiles so sweetly and is the undisputed queen of To-oh, who is everything Light stopped pretending to be halfway through high school, who's content floating in the useless little closed bubble that the university's formed, who has no major career goals of interest, who wants to become involved in _television_ of all the worthless things, who's never even thought about breaking free from the mold, tackling a career of worth and making an effort to make things _different_ \-- 

Ryuuga's been spoiling her from the beginning. It's an excellent tactic, really, Light thinks, to level the playing field, to coax her into dropping the mirrored shield she'd once wielded, to coax her into not caring, and their battlefield is littered with the shattered remains of a thousand lives, including her own, however fake it used to be.

She doesn't much care to pick the shards back up again and slot them into place, she doesn't much care to start playing for an idiot audience, not again, maybe not ever, and Takada is an anchor on her arm and it's only been an hour, she shouldn't feel like she's sinking, and she can't drown when she's learning to fly, she won't fall into this, not now, not ever again--

And then she lifts her eyes, and Ryuuga is there, perched on a bench and waving madly, a vacuous smile on her face, and Light inhales sharply and doesn't mind the pinprick of Takada's nails into her skin, because this petty, pretty thing might make a decent tool someday but right now she's just a nuisance, and the last thing Light needs is to lug dead weight into a prize fight.

"Excuse me, Takada-san," Light says with a rueful chuckle, "it looks like Ryuuga's gotten sick of waiting for me to get out of class. Guess she decided to skip today."

"I see," Takada says, her voice calm but her eyes tense, and she'll need to work on that, if she wants that future in broadcasting. She might prove useful someday if that's really what she's been planning for, her infatuation all but guarantees it, but Light can't help feeling a little disgusted.

Kira's duty shouldn't be this easy but people are so _stupid_ and self-involved that they can't even save themselves, and it's pathetic, it's so ridiculously sad that she had to become Kira in the first place, all because everyone else is too weak to try and change anything, all because everyone else is too afraid to lose their precious social standing, everone else is too afraid to speak out or even try, everyone else is too afraid to die.

_Coward_ , she thinks viciously, _you worthless coward, get your filthy paws off of me_ and she smiles softly and tilts her head down and smiles at Takada, sugar-sweet and gentle.

"I'll call you later, all right?" Light says, because she might want to claw her eyes out but she should nuture this, because it won't hurt to flirt with other girls to tease Ryuuga, because any new cover she can invent is another false trail to lead, and Takada's making this pathetically easy.

It doesn't wipe the tension off of her face, but Takada pulls a passable smile and says, "Of course, Yagami-san."

Light takes a step forward, hoping that she'll get the point, and it takes a moment, but she finally lets go. "Until later, Takada-san," Light says pointedly, and Takada smiles again, a bit more smugly this time, and says, "I'll talk to you later, Yagami-san."

She walks away with her head held high, and Light rolls her eyes once she's sure she won't turn around again. The she sighs, shakes her head slightly, and turns to greet the source of the quiet footsteps that did more to drive Takada away than her own attempts at extricating herself from Takada's grasping little claws.

"Light-kun had a leech attached to her arm, and she put it there on purpose," Ryuuga announces, and Light has to admit it's an apt comparison. She kind of wants to disinfect her arm. "Has she not heard that bloodletting is considered an ineffective treatment for disease?"

"Her name is Takada, you know," Light says dryly, mildly insulted by the insinuation but choosing to ignore it because she refuses to make a face at Ryuuga when they're both in public. "And she's sweet enough, if a bit dull. A little harmless flirtation isn't going to hurt anything."

Ryuuga tilts her head to the side and gives her a blank look, but her eyes are just a little more narrowed than usual. "Isn't going to hurt you," she corrects.

"I can't only talk to you, you know," Light says, nudging her softly with an elbow, "and it's rude not to reply when people want to speak with you. Besides, she's pretty and it's always better to be nice to your admirers."

"That's because they so often turn into stalkers," Ryuuga says mildly, which is not actually what Light was going to say but is a fairly good point. "Perhaps you should dump her for your own good."

Light laughs and reaches for her hand. "If she's making you jealous then I'm _definitely_ not dumping her," she says happily, lacing their fingers together. It always seems like Ryuuga should be cool to the touch, like a painting or a statue, like antifreeze should run in her veins instead of blood, and Light's surprised every time by her warmth, even though she shouldn't be.

Light's always considered the poets useless, wasting their oratory on beauty and wonder and pondering the interminable human condition, but she's starting to gain more of an appreciation for them now that there's something in the world that actually leaves her a little breathless, now that there's something in the world that actually makes her smile.

"Using another as a pawn in one's game is a very Kira-like maneuver," Ryuuga is saying, setting their joined hands to swinging, and Light bites down the urge to laugh, reconsiders, then laughs anyway.

"And it's a proven L-maneuver," she retorts, gently chiding, voice still lilting a little with laughter. It's a lovely sound, she knows, because she'd practiced it until it was perfect, until complete strangers paused on streetcorners to watch her as she passed. Ryuuga, however, is a different story, so she squeezes her hand and contines, "Everybody in Kanto saw that broadcast."

"As you were meant to, Yagami-kun," Ryuuga drawls, a hint of mischief in her voice, "but the man I chose was guilty of many horrible crimes. Dear Takada-san is not."

_Not yet, anyway,_ Light thinks, but when the time is right, she'll become a murderer. Takada would probably be willing to be one now, but Light will slaughter anyone who dares get near Ryuuga with her bare hands, if necessary. "It's hardly my fault I'm beautiful, brilliant, and seemingly unattached," Light says cheerfully, "I really don't know what to do with all of that unwanted attention."

Collapse under the weight of it, maybe, but that was before, and she's a god now, she's not bound by petty mortal rules any longer, she's free.

Ryuuga, as always, remains unimpressed. It's kind of cute. "It is _precisely_ your fault, and yes you do."

Light squeezes her hand again, because she's feeling content and affectionate, because there's more reality in this moment than in the first eighteen years of her life combined, and the sun is shining and sakura petals are falling in her hair, and it's a little amusing how swiftly her moods swing when Ryuuga's near, it's a little amusing how silly and infatuated she feels when she's spent all of this time very carefully plotting how to kill the girl who's making her smile. "Well, yes, but it's not my fault that others don't seem to notice it's my fault."

"How very like Kira," Ryuuga drawls, and she'd like to turn and smother her in kisses, she'd like to turn and sweep her off her feet, she'd like to turn and kill all the world around them until they were all that remained, just a goddess and her consort, alpha and omega, always and forever.

What a worthless world to stand between them.

"How very like every woman in a society like this one, who has been trained to present a specific face to the world in all circumstances and is punished when she fails to adhere to those socially-mandated standards."

Ryuuga snorts. "How very like every human in every society."

_Touché_ , Light thinks, _but also a lie, if you are who you say you are._ "I can hardly be singled out for choices mimicked by all members of the species--or most of them, at least."

Ryuuga ignores the jibe. "Ah, but Light-kun, of course you can."

"Only by you, Ryuuga," Light retorts, "everyone else would go for the sane option."

"That," Ryuuga says, a smirk curving her lips, "is precisely my point."

"What, that you're insane?" Light says brightly, and laughs when Ryuuga squeezes her hand just a little too hard, tilts her head back and smiles up at the sky and Ryuk, winging his way back to her now that there's entertainment to be had. "I still say you're jealous, if you're flattering me with your attentions so."

"Hmm," Ryuuga replies, "but do you not automatically assume that you're the only one deserving of my attentions?"

Well, she is. "I already told you I'd battle Kira for the honor."

"An interesting concept, considering that you are she."

It sends a little thrill down Light's spine every time she says that, so careless and so very certain, and Ryuuga will never be able to prove it but she'll always know that she's right. "I'm not, and if it would win you, I'd take on every serial killer there is." Because she has, as it's a duty, and maybe it's a little bit of a joy, that purging the world of its filth has also won this, a hand in her own and a knife at her throat, a shinigami at her side and the world at her feet.

Ryuuga flashes her a quick, tiny smile, and there's nothing at all pretty about it, she's not at all beautiful, and Ryuk's laughing at her, floating along above and cackling about their banter, and maybe he's her best friend too, maybe he's wonderful for giving her all she needed to finally start living a life that's worthy of her. 

"I hardly think outdoing them is the way to charm me, Light-kun," Ryuuga says, which is the most blatant lie Light's heard all day, even including the history lecture she'd been subjected to earlier.

"And yet you've been lured to me despite my own innocence. My charms must extend beyond your suspicions of me, as there was no need to get so close--you're risking yourself far too much for such a game."

If she ever finds out that Ryuuga's playacted like this for any other case, she'll kill everyone involved in that investigation, tear out whatever eyes might have looked upon her, and rip out the heart of whoever it was that she ventured out for.

She has to keep her safe until the right moment, after all.

"I am very fond of games, Light-kun, as well you know."

"I'd noticed."

"As are you."

Light closes her eyes for a moment, counts out the seconds and then exhales, turning a rueful smile on Ryuuga, tempered with gentle exasperation. "...I don't think I have to tell you that it'd been a long time since I felt like playing before I met you."

"Before the incident which sparked the birth of Kira," Ryuuga corrects.

Light pauses mid-step, then turns to face her fully, schooling her face into stillness and seriousness save for eyes half-lidded and a voice pitched low and gentle. "No," she says deliberately, "not until you." 

Looking into those dark eyes, holding her hand, standing in the spring sunshine beneath her shinigami's shadow, it's hardly even a lie at all.

"I am flattered that Light-kun finds me a worthy opponent," Ryuuga says, but the tone of her voice says _Kira_ and there's a fine glaze of sarcasm against the smoothness of the words. "To that end, I wonder, should Light-kun like to play a game with me?"

Light blinks, letting the surprise flood her features. "A new game?" she inquires tentatively, like this is a new dance instead of just another step, like the music's skipped tracks without her knowing.

"Look at where we are, Light-kun."

Light turns and glances, blinks again, then turns back to Ryuuga and raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "Are you seriously suggesting that we play tennis?"

"Why not?"

Because the thought of Ryuuga in proper tennis-playing attire kind of makes her brain balk, which is something that has never happened before as far as Light can recall. "In all this time we've never done anything involving physical exertion. Truth be told up 'til now I hadn't thought it something you would concern yourself with."

"Perhaps I find the idea of physical exertion with Light-kun... invigorating."

Light's surprised into laughter that's much louder than she'd usually allow, but it fits the situation, so she lets it go and ignores Ryuk's startled cackling. "I do find it charming when you flirt back so enthusiastically, but what purpose will this serve? We hardly need to establish a closer relationship for the purposes of your investigation, and if you want to see me in a short skirt all you need to do is ask."

"In a short skirt and physically exerting yourself?" Ryuuga asks, and sometimes she's remarkably like a boy, really, but it's a little surprising that Light doesn't hate it at all.

This time it's Light that snorts. "Hopefully by the time the physical exertion came around I would no longer be wearing the short skirt--unless you're into that sort of thing?"

"I am sure I would be content with whatever Light-kun wished, but I propose this game for other motives."

"I'm not sure whether or not to be disappointed in that," Light admits, shaking her head ruefully, "And your motives are?" 

"I find myself pondering an invitation which Light-kun would desire greatly, and yet conflicted, for Kira would desire it greatly as well. And truthfully, it is something that I myself desire for purely selfish motives. So I am proposing a duel. Should Light-kun win, I shall extend the invitation she would so desire."

Light blinks. Considers. Lets her eyes widen just enough to look innocent, then calculating, very carefully letting her lips curve into a faint smile. "And should I lose?"

"Reciprocity. You must extend me an invitation _I_ would desire, one which both myself and L would desire greatly."

Light closes her eyes, inhales deeply, then breathes out slowly, counting three heartbeats before she opens her eyes again and responds. "Unfortunately for you, I am not Kira, and thus cannot offer anything either of you would desire."

Ryuuga takes a step forward, smiling slightly. "And yet you are a Kira suspect." She tugs her hand free and lifts it in a careless gesture, "and a very pretty one," she finishes, patting her cheek delicately, and Light laughs again and tries to lean into her hand, but as always she pulls back much too quickly, and she's not quite fast enough to catch her.

"If you were a boy I'd have punched you for that," Light tells her cheerfully, "but I'll admit I'm intrigued by the idea of a match with you that can only have a favorable outcome for the both of us."

"It's a good thing I'm not a boy, then," Ryuuga says seriously. "Because I would have punched you back, and people tend to frown on that sort of thing."

Light laughs.

* * *

The next day is wonderful, playing tennis in the sunshine and sipping tea in the shadow of fake greenery, trading barbs and insinuations over the teasing notes she's written to L--"I can't believe Kira is flirting with you!"--but she's completely dumbfounded when their cell phones go off in the same instant, completely shocked by the news, and she hops in the back seat of the limo with her and curls against her side on the drive to the hospital.

Through the panic and noise and the slowly-settling aftermath, her mother sends her a very sharp look, but she's kept her hands to herself since her feet hit the pavement, and there's nothing at all to prove that she and Ryuuga are any more than passing acquaintances, there's nothing at all to substantiate her suspicions, or Sayu's, and it rapidly becomes clear that her father has no idea what she's been up to, not really, even though he's a member of the investigative team, even when that's what drove him here.

He looks very fragile in the bed, and Light thinks again of mortality, but Soichiro Yagami has never seemed afraid of that, and she might have her issues with him, but her father is an honorable man and her mother is steadfast and her sister is a vibrant thing, and she'll make the world safe for them, she'll take what's been given to her and save their lives.

Kira, after all, is a benevolent god.

* * *

The night air is cool as she walks outside, a faint breeze ruffling her hair and chilling her skin, bringing with it the scent of exhaust and fried food, the chatter of pedestrians and a thousand distant horns honking, and Light wanders down towards the steps, pausing before she begins the descent towards the sidewalk, wondering if just maybe... 

She's barely been there a moment before the doors open again and Ryuuga drifts through them, taking a long moment to just watch Light before she ambles over and comes to a halt beside her.

They watch the traffic pass by for several long moments before Light turns and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek. "Thank you," she says softly, "for taking me here."

"Your father is a valuable member of the Kira task force," Ryuuga says blandly, "it was no trouble."

Light studies her in the dimness, backlit by the hospital's facade and passing headlights gleaming against her hair, ink-black in the darkness. "And until he recovers?" she asks eventually, "Have our plans changed since this afternoon?"

"No change, Yagami-kun," Ryuuga says mildly, not bothering to look at her. "I'll contact you with the information you'll need to access task force headquarters."

"...I'd hoped we could go out tonight," Light says cautiously, taking a tentative step forward, "I... could use someone to talk to, if you wouldn't mind." 

"Not now, Yagami-kun," Ryuuga says, and it shouldn't feel like a slap in the face but it does.

"...oh," is what Light says, hunching in on herself a little instead of snarling at her, instead of lunging for her throat, because this is the perfect moment for Kira to strike, when everything's off-balance, but she can't afford to look that ruthless, so she sticks for looking lost instead. "Of course, you've got lots of logistics to think of." She pastes a small smile on her face, taking care to look pained and awkward and young and unsure instead of murderously angry. "You can indulge me later, I'm sure."

"Mmm," Ryuuga says, and Light suddenly wants to shake her, because she's right there and she's not even watching her, she's right there and suddenly she's not playing the game anymore, and then Ryuuga turns and _looks_ at her and her breath catches so suddenly that it almost hurts. 

"You're ruthless enough to have done this on purpose," Ryuuga says, voice mild but with eyes like eternity, and for a moment the dance is frozen, and in the stillness it's her enemy's true face that's the mask, porcelain-pale and perfect. 

Light's never seen anything so beautiful.

There's a long moment of quiet while they study one another, while Tokyo pulses like a heartbeat around them, while passing cars scream by and late-shift nurses sidle past, and Light wonders if it will always be like this with her, because of her, a string of sparkling moments stretching out against an endless sea.

"...Ryuuga?" she questions delicately, savoring the appellation on her tongue, savoring the purity of the lie, "What are you...?"

Ryuuga-- _L, L, she's really and truly **L**_ \--doesn't take Light's invitation, doesn't even acknowledge it, just continues speaking in that careful blank tone that's her real voice, _finally_. "You could have. But I know that you didn't." 

Another moment, perfect, jewel-like in its stillness, and Light breathes in shallowly, anticipation buzzing in her veins, waiting for the blow. 

"Something to consider, Kira-kun." 

And then L turns and walks back into the hospital, melting back into Ryuuga as she goes, leaving Kira still in her wake and Light standing on the steps, staring after her, but she's not reeling from the hit, a surgical strike to her pride, she's reeling from the _contact_ , eyes wide and pulse racing, and maybe this thrill is the real addiction, and the imminent divinity merely an aftereffect.

When Ryuk swoops down to settle at her side, Light stays stock-still for several long moments before she turns slowly away, casting a long glance behind her before she takes the first step down.

"I just saw _her_ ," she breathes as she starts down the stairs, feeling a giddy smile start tugging at her lips, "All this time we've been playing and I finally saw her and she's _perfect_!" 

Her arms drift up to lock around her chest, where the scraps of the note are tucked between soft cotton and bare skin, and she closes her eyes and thinks of this, one perfect day and one perfect night, and maybe it was an accident but she still won it, enough time and sweetness to catch that one perfect glimpse of L behind Ryuuga's impeccable mask, and she'll have to thank her father for this somehow, when the whole world knows it's her own.

There's a laugh bubbling in her chest as she turns her face to the sky, to her ever-present shadow, and it spills past her lips almost of its own volition. "Ryuk!" she calls happily, unafraid this far away from the hospital doors, safely out of reach of prying eyes. "Ryuk, you saw her too, didn't you?"

He swoops closer, enough that he's looming and black feathers are tickling her skin, and maybe there's electricity humming beneath her skin, maybe she's stolen some of his magic, maybe there's some truth to the myth that when you kill a man you steal his life force and make it your own. "Huh? Saw who?"

"Saw L," Light says, and laughs into the sparkling spread of the city below her, the stars stretched out like dim jewels beyond the glow of the neon lights, and she might not have a shinigami's wings but every step she takes feels like flying.

* * *


	8. Heartbeat - An Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All radiant with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place immediately following the previous chapter.

The night air is still crisp in her lungs and the house is quiet as Light tiptoes up the stairs, her mother still at the hospital, Sayu long since asleep, and Ryuk's still drifting close, so she reaches up and lets her fingertips brush the edge of his wings, tugs experimentally on a feather and smiles to hear him squawk.

"Can I steal one from you?" she asks, teasing, thinks of braiding a string of her shinigami's feathers into her hair, letting them drift soft and gentle against her cheek every time she laughs and tosses her head, another mystery for Ryuuga to frown at, a reason for long pale fingertips to card through her hair, and she wouldn't know, it would be impossible to know, and maybe she's too reckless but there's no way, no _way_ for anyone to connect an affectation like that to Kira, except Ryuuga would, of course she would, and that's half the temptation of it all.

Ryuuga would _know_ but have no way to prove it, and Light could smile at her, duck her head and peer up through her lashes and say that it reminded her of _her_ , the feathers ink-black and endlessly soft, and how perfect, how perfect that Ryuuga's hair is the closest thing she's ever seen to a shinigami's wings, her smile a shinigami's smile, her skin death-pale and her eyes the void of eternity. 

Light could bring her a honey-colored feather of her own, an offering and a taunt, and she would pour a little of herself into it if she could, open a vein for the only one who would ever deserve it, and Ryuuga would never wear it in her hair, never, but she would keep it, hide it and conceal it, and Light, Light would _know_ , and it would be perfect.

Ryuk won't let her steal his feathers, gives an unhappy flail and escapes to the safety of the ceiling when she tries, and Light flops back onto her bed and laughs up at him, still buoyant with joy.

Her father is alive.

Her father is alive, and Ryuuga is L, and the world she has made is _perfect_.

Ryuuga is L, and always has been, never a lie except always, always a lie, because L is a liar for now and for always, never a lie because the truth is always beneath it, and she knows, she _knows_ , Ryuuga told her, not a lie and the best of lies, always, always, always.

"Because I am Kira," she whispers to the darkness and her shinigami, fingers pressed to her lips, her lips that had brushed against a porcelain-pale cheek scarce an hour before, "because I am Kira, so Ryuuga must be L."

Alpha and omega, in the western tradition, that slightest hint of _other_ , of an accent that she hadn't been able to place, but the numbers are wrong for kotoamatsukami, but that doesn't matter either, she's building a new world, a new religion, and Kira will reign forever but L, L will always be the beloved adversary, L will always be hers alone.

Light rolls to her feet, showers and re-dresses, preens in the mirror and curls her fingers into her own hair, gives herself another moment to dream, then sits at her desk and continues her work, because there's no time to stop, no matter the wonder of her world.

So much to do, so many plots to plan, and in the silence and the darkness, Light can't stop smiling, can't stop the silvery laughter bubbling past her lips with every stroke of her pen.

Ryuuga is L.

Of course she is.

Oh, _of course_ she is.

She could never be anyone else.


	9. Chapter 8 Teaser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A teaser for the next chapter, in which Light spends a lot of time talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this posted today for my annual Valentine's Day update and also for Femslash February. I want to get the chapter completed and posted by the end of March, but that's going to depend on a number of unrelated issues.

* * *  
\- Chapter Eight Teaser -  
* * * 

Light wakes up before the sun rises, groping for her phone, and doesn't bother to check who's calling before she answers.

"Ryuu-chan," she murmurs, sweet and groggy, letting the endearment slide out like an accident, like a sleepy fumble, and yawns as she stretches, to give L the most appealing mental image that she can. "Any updates?"

"You wanted to talk," says L-called-Ryuuga-called-Ryuuzaki, wide-awake and clear as ever despite the early hour, "So I'm talking."

"I'm sleeping," Light says, though she is doing nothing of the sort, already sitting up and sliding a hand through her hair to work out any tangles that have snuck in over the course of the night.

"No you're not," Ryuuga replies, and Light smiles up at Ryuk on her ceiling, serene with affection, gesturing for him to stay silent. The last thing she needs is a distraction when L is calling, especially since she's this tired. 

Deliberate, that, and she likes the way L has twisted her request, likes the way that she's paying attention again, as she should be.

"No, I'm not," Light agrees, and closes her eyes and yawns again while Ryuuga chuckles and calls her a liar.

Of course she is, and of course she isn't, but since L already knows the truth, it can't be a lie at all.

"Ryuu-chan," she says again, this time more clearly, so L will know that it's purely deliberate and that she wants her to notice--though she'd do that anyway, so maybe it's just because Light likes saying it, likes the sweetness of the sound and the taste of it on her tongue, words she's never said before and will never say to anyone else--"stop being a hypocrite and tell me if you bribed the nurses to let mom stay with my dad in the hospital last night."

The answer makes her laugh, and she keeps the phone tucked between her shoulder and her cheek as she rises, keeps it close by in the bathroom while she scrubs the sleep from her eyes, and places it on her desk while she eyes her closet critically. 

"I'll make breakfast for Sayu and then bring her to the hospital so mom can come home," she says, frowning thoughtfully as she debates the merit of skirts versus pants for a day like today. "Will you have time for me then?"

Ryuuga hums a little in consideration. "Perhaps. Is it wise for you to avoid your family so soon after he collapsed?"

"Probably not," Light sighs, shoving Ryuk's feet out of her way as she decides on a blouse, "but I want to see you. If I come home with mom and make sure she gets to bed..."

"That's very irresponsible of you, Light-kun."

Light breathes out a soft huff of laughter, shaking her head. "My father just had a heart attack, and I'm already talking to the best person to ensure that it doesn't happen again. The sooner you give me access to the investigation, the sooner I can take on some of his responsibilities, and the less stressed he'll be."

Ryuuga hums a bit louder. "He won't like that."

Light shrugs, though L can't see her, and contemplates the difference between charcoal gray and navy blue, of a skirt that falls to the knees or to just above them. "He doesn't like any of it, but it's your investigation, not his."

"None of them will like it," Ryuuga says, dry as dust, and Light bites her lip to stifle a smile. 

Her voice is a bit lighter than it should be when she replies, but they both know what they're doing, and Light's never tried to hide her fascination with L's power, so different from her own. "It's my choice to get involved and your choice to let me. I'm old enough to want to protect my family, aren't I?"

"Wanting to protect your family can be a dangerous thing," Ryuuga replies, soft and sharp, "as your father has so clearly demonstrated."

Light rolls her eyes and picks the charcoal skirt, giving her shinigami a dark glare and a gesture that sends him fleeing through the ceiling so she can get dressed. "My father has clearly demonstrated that years in a highly-stressful, dangerous position, coupled with a lack of sleep and years of poor eating habits, has a detrimental effect on one's health. Or that Kira's getting sloppy, but we both know better than that."

"You're taking this very well for someone who claimed to be upset just a few hours ago," L says, and Light stills, skirt in hand, and counts off heartbeats as she lets the silence linger.

"...it's one of the things that's wrong with me," Light says after a suitable amount of time has passed, eyes down, fingers clenched. Body language comes through in tone, and it's easier this way to shape her voice to suit her character, when her eyes are half-lidded and she's staring at her toes. She should file the nails down, given Ryuuga's penchant for bare feet, maybe apply a clear gloss to establish similarity and difference, to invite touch. "I know you know that. I _know_ you do."

"I do," says L, calm agreement and a razor edge, and Light has to close her eyes for a moment, close them and just breathe, like she would if it were real.

It is real. It's the only thing that ever has been.

"I need to see you," she says eventually, the words exhaled on a sigh, delicately cracked and shaken. "Ryuu-chan, I _need_ to see you."

"I'll pick you up once your mother is asleep," L says, abrupt, and hangs up without a goodbye.

Bargain negotiated and sealed, and Light puts her phone on the desk, inhales deeply, and turns her attention to smoothing out the skirt that she's creased.

She hadn't realized she was clutching the fabric so tightly, but she's not surprised by it, either, and it will work with what she's trying to do, so she won't bother with the iron.

The charcoal skirt will look good with the top that she's chosen, and the shade of her blouse will match Ryuuga's jeans almost perfectly, and no one but L will understand, or realize that they notice.

She's counting on it.

* * *

"It's important that my father and everyone else start thinking of us as a single unit as soon as possible," she explains to Ryuk later, after she's called through Sayu's door that it's morning and she should wake up if she wants breakfast, as she finishes brushing out her hair. "The last thing we need is for them to treat me the way that they're going to want to, so we need to establish early on that I'm acting on her full authority."

"Aren't you only seeing your dad today? What's the point?" Ryuk asks from over her shoulder. He's weirdly fascinated by Light's beauty routines, even though he should be used to them by now, and Light's long since gotten over being disconcerted by looking into a mirror and seeing him looming behind her.

It really makes no sense that she can see his reflection. It would be fun, she thinks, to try and puzzle out the physics of it all with L, one day, in another world, another perfect world where they would be together forever.

This world is such a useless waste.

Light frowns thoughtfully at herself, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. Pat it down with gel, or--no, not for what she's trying to convey. "My dad and her chauffeur, I think. But since dad's going to resist it, even though he's managed to rationalize it to himself so far--he's the one we've really got to convince. Once he makes a decision, whether or not he realizes it, the others will fall in line accordingly."

"And he'll get all of that from the color of your shirt."

"He'll get all of that from what _starts_ with the color of my shirt," Light corrects, and straightens up, setting the brush back down and giving herself a final once-over. 

Blue blouse a touch darker than L's faded jeans, charcoal skirt with a faint hint of creasing around the waistband, hair brushed out but not styled, no makeup, and a hint of shadow under her eyes speaking of emotional strain and a lack of sleep.

Perfect.

* * *


End file.
